Founder Stories

This is why we have our "press story", our "VC story" and our "friends & family story". The facts don't really change (unless we feel like having some fun) - just the parts we focus on.

I've started two business (SmartFlix.com and HeavyInk.com).

SmartFlix was started sort of as an epiphany, and mostly as an accident - I wanted to watch some metalworking videos, and thought I'd recoup the cost of them by renting them out.

HeavyInk was started in a much more calculated way - we made a list of about 20 things that we could sell in a way that matched our core competencies (ecommerce, datamining, small item fulfillment, knowledge of USPS regulations, etc.), and picked one item off the list. It turned out to be one that was interesting to us (comics), but it was still a bit of a mercenary procedure.

I dunno, in the case of my idea, I thought of something that I wanted, and then through a long series of epiphanies spread over a year or two (maybe three?), I realized I could actually do it.

However, I think that there definitely is a kernel of truth in these founder stories even in their distilled version. While the epiphany is momentary and only signifies the start of the quest, it is a key inspirational moment that makes you feel you can do it. Maybe it's not as dramatic as, for a cute example, Neo taking the red pill, but it does have some of the same significance in that it can radically change your life path.

While the marketspeak of some of these stories is just blowing their own horn while saying something obvious, once you have your initial idea, at least to me, it seems almost brain dead. You can always distill the specifics of your idea down to something truly simple. There's a saying in mathematics that everything in math is obvious, except that no one thought of it until now. It's the same principle at work.

Don't underestimate PR, marketing and storytelling - it's an incredibly important part of doing a startup.

I love founder stories, and I hadn't noticed they setup the background with a "quest which is romantically appealing to the target market". Do they? It's a great way to appeal to that market. I mean, if your purpose is to inspire, why not make the setup of the inspiration itself inspiring? It's like a comedian telling a series of jokes, which also setup the main joke.

But the "epiphany" in the article is not an answer but a question... It's a problem, a need, an opportunity - the call to adventure that begins a quest. Key is the compelling sense that if I could provide this thing, in this context, it would be fantastic! It's compelling to the target market as it was to the founder.

It's not just an abstract idea ("hey, tasty food!") but (1) customer need, (2) in a specific context, (3) unmet by competitors. What the article calls the "true big idea" is the answer to the question - the "epiphany" is the question.

I'd love to hear some more one-paragraph founder stories, if you have some...?

EDIT who needs founder stories when you can have jumping robots? http://anybots.com/videos.html#dexter_jumps_title

> If the idea [of good tasting sports food/bar things] was an epiphany for him, I'm just glad I never ate at his bakery.

I can completely empathize with choking down powerbars. My mountain bike team was sponsored by them one year. Towards the end of the year, I got ill just looking at the things, and to this day have not consumed another one. I do have to admit that they may, however, be useful as emergency patches to blown out tires.

Focused, clean text, sectioned just right, full dedicated page, no distractions. Worth reading every word. A piece of art.

[Like a web page from 1995 but using all modern tools to make it pretty]